MTSoc Produce the Producers
As MTSoc put their finishing touches to the Spring performance, the Producers, they invited this intrepid reporter along to see how things were shaping up in the dress rehearsal.
Somehow on a blustery Tuesday evening I found myself invited to the dress rehearsal of MTSoc’s latest performance, The Producers. For those unfamiliar with this play, the basic plot is thus: After Max Bialystock's latest show closes - a failure after only one night - he swears to return as the 'King of Broadway'. When Leo Bloom, an accountant with a dream of being a Broadway producer, comes up with the idea that you could make more money from a flop than a success, a plan is born. The pair must now find the worst play ever written, the worst director in town and two million dollars. And that play? Springtime for Hitler.
After the success of Dramsoc's Jerusalem last week, which in terms of both acting and set is the best I've seen them do so far in my time at Imperial, MTSoc had their work cut out for them if they were going to continue with the quality we've had so far this term. And from what I have seen from the dress, they seem to have done it.
The acting is as over-the-top and ridiculous as is to be expected, and it works so well here, with every character shining with flamboyant brilliance. Not only is the script something close to comedic genius, but there is something to be said about the physical comedy here too. Chris Witham as Franz Liebkind in particular manages to use both of these to great effect, stealing every scene that he is in. I don't think I stopped laughing for the entirety of his first scene, especially during 'Der Guten Tag Hop Clop'. Though that may have had something to do with the pigeons.
The pigeons bring me nicely to my next point, that of the set, the costumes and the props. This musical requires many scene changes, and they get past this potential problem by having it rotate on wheels. So long as they don't get stuck, this works well, and though the scene changes could be slicker, they do look lovely. The costumes, requiring changes as frequent as the sets, are bright, sparkly and occasionally feature lederhosen. Most impressive are the props. Partially due to my curiosity of how they managed to get hold of so many Zimmer frames, but mostly due to the pigeons. Did I mention I love the pigeons?
Of course it's not all perfect. In the songs themselves, some of the lines seemed a tad forced, and though sometimes that added to the humour of them, mostly it just annoyed me. An entire romance based on physical appearance (seriously, the love song is called 'That Face')? Have we not moved past that trope by now? The dancing also had problems, not being anywhere near as smooth as it could and probably should be. This is certainly an unpolished piece, with problems with lighting, sound and the set plaguing the performance. However all of this can be easily fixed, nor can it mask the fact that MTSoc have obviously got something fantastic on their hands.
Catch the performance at 19:30 on Wednesday, Thursday or Saturday, or at either 18:00 or 21:30 on Friday.
